


Shooting the Breeze (With Your Heart on Your Sleeve)

by Shirokokuro



Series: Secretary Tim (And Other Shenanigans) [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Batdad, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Bruce catches feelings, Dick watching these two idiots like Lord help them, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Secretary!Tim, Tim just trying to do his job but Bruce's like, Um is this where I audition for the role of Father Figure?, bruce's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26727796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirokokuro/pseuds/Shirokokuro
Summary: Bruce is an adept when it comes to planning. Tim Drake, however, he hadn't exactly accounted for.
Relationships: Bruce Wayne & Dick Grayson (mentioned), Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne
Series: Secretary Tim (And Other Shenanigans) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663189
Comments: 115
Kudos: 502





	1. The Boy

**Author's Note:**

> This is more like a collection of drabbles from Bruce's POV showcasing how he caught Father Feels.
> 
> Although this series is intended to be read in order of publication, I'll mark before each chapter of this where the events take place. (For instance, this chapter leads up to _Smile and the World Smiles With You_.)

Bruce is running entirely on autopilot. He’s exhausted from the fallout of the earthquake, and if it weren’t for the adrenaline in him, he doubts he’d be standing. The cape and Kevlar weigh heavily on him when he asks, “Are you hurt?”

Ten seconds pass. The teenager in front of him hasn’t replied, so Bruce repeats himself.

Words tumble out in reply, all slanted and broken. The boy’s looking for his family, he says. Bruce can’t see his face, but he can hear the terror in his thoughts. The shock.

Bruce has seen the same story unfold at least half a dozen times tonight, but something about this particular case is like a hit to the chest. Maybe it’s his breaking point. The last straw.

He doesn’t usually reach out, but before Bruce has realized it, he’s put a hand on the boy’s back, trying to calm, to soothe. Like he can drain some of the apprehension from him with the touch. The boy relaxes, just incrementally, curling his spine out against Bruce’s palm while Bruce pats the matted fabric of his T-shirt. Bruce will take what he can get, because he doesn’t have time to linger here.

“Someone’s coming to help,” he says, and then, he’s gone.

* * *

For whatever reason—and to this day Bruce still doesn’t know why—he’s haunted by the sight of that boy from behind. “Perhaps,” Alfred says one morning whilst folding laundry, “it’s because you never saw his face. I imagine that finding him would resolve your turmoil.”

Bruce continues to stare at himself in his coffee, hair tussled from his latest night of no sleep. “I wouldn’t even know where to look,” he sighs, leaning against the dryer and tilting his head back to stretch out the muscles. There are four million people in Gotham. Scouring it all just so he can sleep doesn’t seem like a good use of time.

With haste, Alfred flicks a shirt right-side out. “‘Wayne Memorial Clinic. That’s what the boy said, wasn’t it?”

Bruce stares at the paint job on the ceiling. “He was looking for his parents…” He chews at the guilt. _Did he ever find them?_ he wonders. He just _left_ the boy there, on his own, in the chaos. Of course, there was a medic coming, but still.

Alone.

“If I recall, Wayne Memorial offers insurance through Wayne Enterprises.”

Bruce drops his eyes from the ceiling. “You mean check the insurance records for both staff and patients? Against company policy?”

Alfred huffs. “What I _mean_ is there are only so many black-haired teenagers in Gotham. Dare I say half of them live under this roof.” Alfred piles the last of the laundry into a bin and balances it on his hip. “By all means, sir, the other half should be a cinch.”

* * *

A cinch isn’t the way Bruce would put it. There are heaps and heaps of insurance records and claims, and it’s only until he’s snagged a list of the volunteers that he thinks he’s come up with something.

Jack Drake.

Bruce skims the copy of a news article (a handsome couple in desert sand, the selfsame two at galas and an award ceremony). “Drake…” Bruce repeats to himself, reclining back in his chair in the cave. He remembers the name, if only vaguely. The man’s in his late forties now by. White comes in on the sides of his hair in his driver’s license, a testament to age that Bruce doesn’t recall, and he has more wrinkles around his mouth than he used to.

A son, too.

Bruce clicks on the file stashed underneath Jack Drake’s and up pops a form filed with Drake Industries. (“Timothy Drake. M. 15 y/o. 5’4". Hair Black. Eyes Blue.”) The boy’s looking askance in the photo, clearly misinformed about when the photo was going to happen, and Bruce can’t help but smile at the humanness of that. He looks horribly young, and the hood of his sweatshirt is rumpled like his father had dragged him out of the house at dawn.

With renewed interest, Bruce digs for more. He doesn’t know why he does it. It’s nothing of particular import—not compared to the other going-ons of Gotham, but once he sees him, he wants to know more, like he can retrieve a piece of the humanity he lost to the disaster by learning the intricacies of this other soul who’s lost just as much—if not more.

There’s more than he was expecting. Records of the odd summer camp here and there, a stint at Brentwood ( _Surprising_.), and a waning interest in the decathlon team. When he checks the latest yearbook, he finds the teen’s stuck up bunny ears behind a friend of his with glasses, and Bruce finds himself smiling for the second time that night.

That should be enough to quell his curiosity. Alfred always is right, after all: One look was enough.

It should’ve been, anyway.

But then, Bruce sees a memo for the funeral, and he can’t help himself.

The dead tone of the boy’s voice, the sixth-sense panic, and the flash of the ambulance lights crowning his silhouette, devouring it until he’s just a sliver in Bruce’s memory.

It causes him to pull out his black suit, cracking off his armor like a chrysalis to reveal just another man at a funeral. (Sometimes, Bruce feels that’s all he is anyway.) And when he pulls up to the curb—alone, of course, and too embarrassed to tell Alfred he’s still digging into this—he eyes himself in the side-view outside his window. He reminds himself why he’s here: to just be a small sign of comfort. Then, he’s putting this all behind himself.

Later, as he walks up through the headstones, he finds he hasn’t even thought of what to say to the boy. Bruce thinks of himself as an eight-year-old, afraid and in need of guidance. He tries to imagine the response he would’ve wanted back then. The right words elude him, though, and he hopes seeing someone in that same state will trigger something.

Lonely.

Lost.

But as it happens, Bruce’s image of Timothy Drake is counter to the truth.


	2. The Manor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Pre- _Bat's Out of the Bag _)__

Dick's eying him over a can of cut peaches, eating straight out of it with a fork while his foot is pulled up on his chair. His gaze wanders to their guest, then back to Bruce.

Bruce imagines Tim’s just as uncomfortable from where he’s picking at his roasted potatoes. His emotions are better hidden than Dick’s, though, locked behind the guise of a tight jaw and steady breaths.

Bruce doesn’t recall how he talked the teen into staying here. Frankly, he’s having trouble remembering anything of the funeral or the time immediately afterward. The last thing he remembers is the spiked flash of bitterness he caught the moment he tried to console the teen, whole posture tensed like a cat on the prowl. He thinks that’s where he went wrong: Bruce had assumed going in that he’d offer hope, that he’d fill some empty void.

It’d been a shock to find the boy had already filled that space with himself.

“So, Tim,” Dick says cordially, fishing out a peach slice before dropping it back in to start the hunt anew, “what do you like to do?”

Tim’s eyes flicker up, then back down. “Not much,” he says. His potatoes are just that interesting.

It’s that moment that Alfred comes in, not commenting on the food left on Tim’s plate before he sweeps it up. “Thank you for sampling my cooking, Master Drake. It does my soul good.” Alfred jabs a look at Dick. “It’s a pity some others don’t share the same sentiment.”

“I’m sorry, alright?” Dick says around his fruit. “Babs and I went out. You know we always grab junk food.”

Alfred sighs before addressing Tim. “I’ve prepared a room for you. I hope the one near the Master’s is to your liking.”

“Thank you…”

Tim stares at his empty place setting for a while longer. He’s barely talked, less from shyness and more from this dull numbness that Bruce remembers well. After a minute of Dick mouthing, "Talk to him!" at Bruce from behind his peach can, Tim finally hovers out of his chair.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” the teen says, dipping his head without looking at any of them, and he vanishes from the dining hall without even asking where his room is. Dick opens his mouth, clearly ready to offer, but Tim’s already long gone.

“Do you think we should…?”

“He’ll be fine,” Bruce says, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. He sighs into his hands. “I’m sure he just needs some time to loosen up. For former neighbors, we’re hardly even acquaintances.”

Dick’s fork scrapes around the sides of the can. “If you’re sure…” he says.

Bruce isn’t.

* * *

Tim’s with them for three weeks, and the entire time, he appears for mealtimes only, vanishing immediately afterward. Even at work, Tim is more like a wraith that trails him, taking notes as Bruce’s previous secretary shows him the ropes. Bruce hears the chatter about it.

A Drake.

Working for a Wayne.

The board of directors sneer at the boy with contempt. (“My, how the Drakes have fallen.” “Poor Jack’s rolling in his grave.”) It’s to the point where Bruce wonders if he shouldn’t have found him a different job, but Tim’s face is like steel the whole time; he takes the gibes and too-hard handshakes with a cold air of professionalism and a smile that could cut glass.

From what Bruce remembers, Jack Drake was a proud man. He often wonders how Tim feels about that, but he never gets much opportunity to ask: Work is always chaotic, a swarm of meetings and speeches and tongue-in-cheek comments, and the Manor is large enough that they barely run into each other.

Really, there’s only one time that sticks out.

It’d been a late night of beating down the rampant gang fights. Three nights, actually, and Bruce was definitely starting to feel it. He stumbled into the pantry close to three in the morning, yawning as he flicked on the light in hopes of finding some nebulous snack that was both tangy and crunchy and jam-packed with sodium. It was only when his eyes open post-yawn that he noticed the face looking back at him.

Tim was frozen there in borrowed PJs, hands parting a wave of too-healthy snack foods.

“Hi?” Bruce greeted, arms falling out of his stretch. “Are you…hungry?”

Tim quickly removed his hands. “I was just looking," he said. He didn’t look embarrassed per se, more just out of place and well-aware of it.

Prompted by his own hunger, Bruce stepped further into the room and perused the bags and boxes. “Anything in particular?” he asked, pulling out a box of Cheerios to read the ingredients.

“Something carbonated, maybe…”

“My son Damian hides Pepsi behind the library’s copy of _Les Misérables_. But I wouldn’t advise stealing any at this hour.”

Bruce caught Tim nod from his side.

“There’s orange juice in the fridge if you’d prefer that.”

Another nod.

Bruce snagged a bag of beef jerky and pried open the Ziploc seal.

Finally, Tim spoke. “Are you OK?”

Bruce looked his way.

“Your face—” Tim gestured to his left cheek. “It’s bleeding.”

“Oh.” Bruce touched the wound. Lynx had gotten lucky and nailed him with her elbow, splitting the skin against his cheekbone. A butterfly bandage had been enough to do the job. “I had a little too much to drink last night’s all. You know me.”

Tim’s brows furrowed. It'd been the most expression Bruce had seen from him in weeks. “You don’t smell like alcohol,” he countered thoughtfully.

Bruce chewed at a strip of jerky, letting his demeanor slip into an aloof, buffoonish variety. “Really? Guess the banana bag did the trick.”

Tim’s looked minorly pained as if to ask, “Are you for real?” Instead, he sighed and looked away. “Take care of yourself.”

Bruce stopped chewing for a minute, surprised, and Tim mirrored the expression on his own face like he hadn’t been meaning to say anything.

“You as well,” Bruce replied, words careful, to which Tim dipped his head again. He made to escape like he always did—always does, but this time, Bruce caught him by the elbow. The teen’s attention flew back.

“Um… the sunrise is really beautiful out here,” Bruce tried, really saying anything to get Tim to stay still for just a minute. “Would you like to stay up with me for a little while longer to watch?”

Tim blinked at him. “I…” He seemed panicky for some reason, unfocused, before finally acquiescing with a small, “OK.”

Bruce beamed through his eyes and set into leading the boy up the foyer steps and into the parlor. The floor-length windows were perfect, and from that direction, they could see light burn through the tree leaves like fire through paper, could smell the dewy morning drifting through the ajar pane.

A few minutes later and the sky burst into orange.

“What do you think?” Bruce asked, only to find Tim had been looking at him instead.

Instantly, the teen snapped his head back forward with a sheepish frown. “It’s nice..."

Satisfied, Bruce settled his shoulder against the window pane and appreciated the chill. He didn’t notice, however, when Tim’s focus shifted back to him—to the small cut on his cheek—with the faintest bit of concern.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite being touted as such, banana bags are not actually cure-alls for hangovers, hence Tim's response. They help rehydrate and supply vitamins, which are important for vitamin-deficient patients, but in terms of reaching sobriety at an increased rate, [they are likely ineffective.](https://www.aliem.com/mythbusting-banana-bag/)
> 
> Happy Mid-Autumn Festival/中秋节/月見/추석/Tết Trung Thu to those who celebrate! 🎉


	3. The Car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Pre- _Bat's Out of the Bag_ )

Tim takes his own car to work. It’s something he’s adamant about, despite the fact Alfred drives Bruce to the same place every morning. So, for the duration of Tim's stay at the Manor, there’s a rusted Honda parked outside. Bruce observes it casually while he and Dick head out for walks, noting the old receipts crammed in the cupholders and the Babe Ruth bobblehead on the dash. It’s the only real thing Tim brings with him to the Wayne Estate, but even then, something about it doesn’t feel intrinsic to his personality.

Dick side-eyes him when he runs the plates. (“Do you have no shame?” he asks.) At this juncture, Bruce doesn’t. The boy’s his employee. It’s only fair that he can learn some about him…isn’t it?

As it turns out, the jalopy is listed under Jack’s name, so different from the sports cars he purportedly used to own. It's your average family sedan, grey with peeling paint around the hubcaps; one of the windshield wipers jams. But still, Tim insists on taking it to W.E., like it’s the only piece of childhood he has left anymore. Who knows? Maybe it is.

There’s something oddly personal—oddly _human_ —about that.

So, Bruce doesn’t mention it. Doesn’t think much about it past the acknowledgement of what it must mean to Tim.

That is, until the last week of Tim’s stay when he announces quietly that he’s found an apartment—at a conference of all things.

Bruce jerks up from where his chin was resting on his chest, now fully awake. “You what?”

Tim doesn’t look away from the front of the room where presenters are setting up. “It’s near downtown. Coming to work shouldn’t be an issue.”

“That’s not—” Bruce lowers his voice when people glare. “That’s not what I mean. Has your emancipation even come through yet?”

Tim seems a bit confused at Bruce’s tone. “The hearing was last week, yes.”

Bruce stares.

Tim never said anything about it.

“Is that…OK?” the teen asks measuredly.

 _No_ , Bruce wants to say. Instead, he stares at Tim while everyone else welcomes the presenters onstage. He can see them applauding, can almost hear the deafening roar, but all his focus has tunneled down to the now-sixteen-year-old next to him.

“I…yes,” Bruce breathes, stunned. “…Thank you for telling me.”

Tim nods, shuffling papers to start taking notes while Bruce struggles to understand why he feels sick to his stomach.

* * *

“Where’d he even get the money?” Dick asks. He’s pacing around Bruce’s study while Bruce sits and watches the ink bleed out of his fountain pen onto a piece of paper. He needs to move it before it stains his desk, but his fingers just won’t work. “His first paycheck from W.E. wouldn’t have come in yet, and the Drakes went bankrupt years ago. I doubt they just have cash lying around.”

“It’s Tim’s business,” Bruce says quietly. “He can do whatever he wants.”

“Yeah, but he’s a kid!”

“Not in the eyes of the law.”

Dick stops his pacing to groan. “Sixteen is _still_ too young. Whoever made that law has obviously never met a teenager in their life. And then—” Dick swirls around. “—there’s the question of the down payment.”

“Dick…”

“What did he do? Sell his soul? Apartments downtown don’t come cheap!”

“Dick,” Bruce says more sternly. Dick stops.

“I want him to stay,” Bruce continues, finally lifting his pen. “I do. But I also want what’s best for Tim, and if this is what he wants, then I can’t stand in the way of that.”

Dick’s shoulders fall. “I know… I just… He’s only a kid. To be living by himself after what happened—it feels wrong.”

They both sigh simultaneously, Dick flopping back onto a sofa while Bruce finally puts the pen back in its holder. “I agree,” Bruce says. “But Tim’s more responsible than most people his age. A court decided so, and it’s not our place to interfere with that.”

“Can’t help but want to,” Dick mutters.

Bruce nods sadly. He feels the same, especially if Tim’s gotten himself into debt over this. The teen could’ve just asked for an advance on his paycheck, but then again, the Drakes are a proud people.

It continues to bother Bruce, though—where Tim got the money.

* * *

A few days later, after Tim’s moved out and they hardly see him, Bruce notices the change. The key fob to Tim’s sedan usually sits on the boy’s desk. Instead of that, there sits a bus pass.

He doesn’t ask what he did with the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tim: So, I'm moving out. Just letting you know.  
> Bruce: Hold up. Lemme call Alfred first.  
> Tim: What does that have to do with--  
> Bruce: Yeah, Alfred says no. v-(:/)-v


	4. The Mask

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Pre- _Bat's Out of the Bag_ )

Tim wears masks. Well, perhaps not in truth, but at least in practice. He's an airhead with Queen, a pundit with Kord, and an absolute doberman when it comes to Luthor. It's shocking to watch the variance, the ease with which Tim jumps from one persona to another.

Bruce can’t help but take an interest in him, this person he’s worked with for half a year now yet feels he doesn’t understand. It quickly becomes a hobby of his: to analyze. Bruce cracks bad jokes to see what expression Tim gives him (a deadpan, a smirk), falls asleep at meetings (notes on his desk, coffee), leaves his briefcase behind (Tim chasing him down, bolting into the elevator and panting as he stuffs it into his hands). It's hard to tell if it's all just another mask or who Tim actually is. Bruce supposes he's not one to talk, but he can't help but put it to the test.

That being said, today is less a test and more a coincidence. After all, it’s hard to fake your stomach growling.

The entry bell jingles as they walk in.

“Don’t worry,” Tim waves as he wanders off to the frozen section. “I won’t narc on you to Alfred, but only if you hurry. Meeting Milanic at one."

“Thanks…” Bruce glances from one side of the 7-Eleven to the other, half self-conscious, half wary of paparazzi. The cashier is too absorbed checking her teeth in her phone screen to notice, and another woman is only partly awake while she pours herself a cup of joe. It’s overflowing onto the coffee bar.

Still unsure exactly how this works, Bruce shuffles over to Tim and starts picking things off the shelf like he’s not just trying to learn how Tim navigates everything. After a few awkward occasions of eye contact, Tim seems to get what’s going on. “Here,” the teen says, moving closer to start pointing out items. “This one’s pretty good if you like your sub with more texture. Otherwise, the cheese on this one is hard to beat. And you’re gonna want something to snack on…”

Pretty soon, Bruce’s hands are full and Tim’s squeezing some abomination of a frozen drink out of a self-serve machine (“Fanta,” he says, as if that explains it.), and then, they’re at the register. Tim only barely manages to convince Bruce to let him pay, citing his rewards points which—frankly—Bruce didn’t know convenience stores offered.

But the teen goes through the motions like he does this often enough. He must, as he summons a sheet of newspaper coupons from his wallet; a few of them have already been snipped out. It doesn’t hit Bruce until then that Tim’s really a kid in a grown-up life. He’s known, of course, but after watching him for months, he’s come to forget just how young the boy is; for all intents and purposes, Tim is as much a full-fledged adult as anyone else who works for him, handling the fake kindness, the red tape, the _theatrics_ without seeming like it gets to him.

It gets to Bruce.

He knows it. That this part of his daily life is so divorced from who he is that it makes him want to claw his skull open. Like every time he looks at himself in the mirror, he finds he’s effaced another part of himself that was important. This is important too, of course. (“Sir.”) The façade. The game. (“Boss.”) And yet…

“ _Bruce_ ,” Tim reiterates, and Bruce snaps out of it to find the boy in front of the ad-riddled door. His hands are laden with bags. “Come on,” he says with a quirked brow. “Meeting time at one sharp, remember?”

“Oh, right.” Stumbling back out onto the sidewalk, Bruce follows after him.

Tim’s already going on about how they can eat in the lobby or a cab if they pay the driver off. They make it to the curb, and the morning glow is lighting the brown strands in the boy's hair, brightening the white to his skin. He looks content despite the histrionics of the world around him. Bruce tries to find something that suggests otherwise, but he can’t.

Eventually, Tim’s gaze swivels his way. “Bruce…?” he starts, noticing him staring. “Are you al—”

“How do you do it?”

Tim flinches.

“This,” Bruce clarifies. “Every day. All the bureaucracy and the shallowness. Doesn’t it get to you?”

Tim blinks at him, mouth faintly agape before turning forward. “Not…really, no.”

Bruce thinks he misunderstands. “It doesn’t bother you to have to be one person one second and an entirely different person the next?”

Tim looks out above the sea of cars all caught in traffic. He gleans them for a long while before answering. “We all have our masks, if that’s what you mean. I don’t think there’s something inherently dishonest about that.”

“But do you…” Bruce scans the cars too. “How do you know where the mask starts and where it ends?”

“I guess you can’t," Tim shrugs, motion made awkward by the bags. "As far as I can tell, we're just the reflections of those around us. No one version of us is less genuine than the others, so I think—in answer to your question—that’s why it doesn't bother me. Because no matter what, they're all still me. Just in different lights.”

Bruce nods dully, breathing in. He only just now realizes how underwater he’s felt, suffocated by the weight of who he pretends to be. As much as he doesn’t think his playboy veneer is true to himself, maybe it could’ve been at one point. The levity. The honest joy.

It’s all faked, but…maybe it’s not so bad to pretend.

“Are you sure you’re OK?” Tim asks, unease writ large on his face.

Right.

Bruce Wayne.

“Of course,” Bruce laughs, throwing an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Just making conversation. Don’t pay me any mind.”

And before Tim can dig deeper into that like he clearly wants to, Bruce is hailing a taxi and that’s the end of that.

* * *

Despite the dodge, Bruce thinks about that conversation a lot. He thinks about it when he’s on patrol, when he’s stuck at galas or when he’s just at home. But most of all, Bruce thinks about it on Sunday mornings.

It’s always the weekends in which Bruce (occasionally Alfred) convinces Tim to come spend the weekend at the Manor. Dick loves the kid, which isn’t much of a surprise, and Damian tolerates him with strained annoyance (again, not much of a surprise). For the most part, it’s peaceful, like before Tim moved out into his own place, only this time Tim seems to enjoy it too.

There are signs that indicate as much.

Dick teases him playfully and Tim takes it with a goofy grin that’s all teenager; he and Damian get into catfights over whether to watch sports or _Animal Planet;_ and Alfred chats with him while preparing meals, regaling him with the theater acts that everyone else in the house is tired of but too scared to admit.

He sees the versions of Tim with each of them. Notes the idiosyncrasies, the big smiles and the light-hearted jabs.

It all points to him being happy here.

And that’s why Sundays come like a slap in the face. Because Bruce always wakes up in the mornings post late-night patrol to hear from Alfred that Tim left in the middle of the night. Vanished, as if 48 hours here were too much for him to bare. And after endless repeats of the same cycle, Bruce decides that it’s just the way he operates: Tim’s the type of person you can catch but you can’t keep.

Still, seeing how Tim plays off Dick and Damian and Alfred, Bruce wonders how Tim reflects off of himself. If Tim doesn’t like who he is with Bruce and that’s why he always leaves. If Bruce doesn’t show a side of Tim that he hates. Or maybe one that he fears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an American who's never been to an American 7-Eleven, you have no idea how much I had to research for this. xD (But ironically enough, they do sell Fanta Slurpees??? This AU's Tim would be so proud.)


	5. The Mistake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre- _Bat's Out of the Bag_ with some overlap.
> 
> (TW: brief hospital scene and non-lethal character injury)

“Have you ever thought about giving that boy a raise?”

Bruce raises a brow at Lucius from his office seat. Of course, he’s thought about it these past few months. Tim’s still as devoted an employee as ever, showing up at the crack of dawn and staying later into the night than Bruce would consider healthy. (Just the other week he found Tim nodding off over a breakfast bagel.) Still, he’s not quite sure how to bring it up.

Tim’s… _Tim_ , after all. He probably wouldn’t even accept it.

“Why do you ask?” Bruce says instead, adjusting his cufflinks.

“Well, his work ethic aside, he just about bit someone’s head off this morning for insulting you.”

Bruce pauses. “…Did he now?”

“‘Bit off’ might be a nice way of putting it, even,” Lucius scoffs. “It was one of our long-timers from R&D. Looked so shocked it was like the kid had floored him.”

Bruce’s eyebrows pull together. “Huh…”

“He thinks the world of you, you know.”

At that, Bruce’s fingers slip and his cufflink scatters to the floor. “Oh. Uh—One second, Lucius.”

Bruce kneels down and manages to hide an exhale behind the furniture piece (What’s wrong with him today?) before starting his hunt. He makes to grab it when he notes a shine on the floor, but Lucius picks it up first, pulling it to the other side of the desk as the man returns to a stand.

“I’ve known you for a long time,” Lucius says, turning the cufflink over between his fingers. “You make a lot of enemies with your laxness, Bruce. Part of me thinks that’s almost your goal. But still, you’ve got one kid in this whole company who talks about you like you hung the stars.” He deposits the cufflink into Bruce’s palm. “So take some advice: Don’t let this one slip away from you.”

Bruce locks the cufflink into place with a distant look.

Honestly, he’s been trying not to mess this up this whole time. He has a history of that with his kids, enough that he thinks he should’ve learned from it by now, but Tim’s hard to get a read on. The teen seems like he wants to connect, to reach out, but the second Bruce reaches back for him, Tim pulls away.

Bruce needs to not smother him so much. Give him some space. That’s what teenagers want, right?

Or maybe…maybe he miscalculated.

Maybe Tim doesn’t want anything to do with him.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Bruce finally replies. “I'll try.”

* * *

It’s true: Bruce miscalculated.

Just not in the way he’d thought.

The person in his arms wheezes. He’s too light, bones like Styrofoam and skin a yellowy pale against the red. It’s leaking through his shirt onto the floor, deep maroon thrown in relief by the tile, and there’s enough of it that Bruce can start to see the reflections of the ceiling lights like backscatter.

“Shh,” Bruce soothes hastily, yanking bandages out of his belt. Tim coughs when Bruce presses them to his stomach, but none of what comes up is blood.

He’s fine.

He’s going to be _fine._

Hating how badly he’s shaking, Bruce sets into moving Tim’s hand over the bullet wound. “You’re all right. I’ve got you.” It’s through the teen’s torso, but he can survive that. There’s something about Tim that makes it seem so, makes him seem impenetrable and untouchable. He can come back from this.

Horrifyingly, Tim’s gaze flickers just the faintest bit. “…Batman…?”

Bruce’s eyes fly to his. It’s one of the first times he recognizes that, for all of his moxie and hardheadedness, Tim’s so small.

He’s not… he’s…

“Make...sure Bruce Wayne s’okay?”

Bruce feels like he’s been shoved into a vacuum, the pressure inflating against him. “Tim—"

“45th floor…”

“ _Tim!”_

 _“…_ m’worried…”

“It’s me,” Bruce finally says, breath gone. Instead there’s just panic. “It’s me. I’m right here.”

Tim’s hand twitches, moves and rises, and his palm lands on Bruce’s bicep. He looks like he wants to say something, wants to push him away, but his eyes are closed and his expression is dense with pain.

(“Tim! Hey, stay with me!”)

It’s not a moment before it’s fallen back to the ground.

* * *

Sitting outside the O.R.

Sitting in the hospital cafeteria.

Sitting. Always sitting.

Bruce watches the I.V. solution ripple with each drop. Tim’s sleeping, fresh out of surgery at four in the morning. The sound of his breath against the cannula is a comfort that reminds Bruce he’s going to be OK. His mind reruns that thought like each bead of a rosary, not so much because it’s what he’s thinking but more because it’s the only thing he _can_ think. The sum of his entire being hinges upon that one conviction.

“You always did find the troublemakers,” someone says.

Bruce hadn’t even heard Leslie come in—a rarity for him, and he looks to find her leaning with her back against the door. “He’ll be fine, Bruce. Almost wasn’t, but he’s a tough cookie. He’d have to be to work with you.”

 _He is_ , Bruce wants to say, but he doesn’t have the faculties to voice it. Dazedly, Bruce puts his hand over Tim’s, struggling to get himself in order. “You’re sure he’s fine?”

Leslie takes in the scene for a minute before snorting. “You’ve got it bad.”

“What?”

Leslie gives him an exasperated smile. “You…” She shakes her head. “Never mind. Just take care of him, okay? He’s got a long recovery ahead.”

“I will.”

The door creaks when Leslie opens it, light spluttering into the room. “You should get that arm stitched up, too. Looks deep.”

Bruce acquiesces with a hum.

“Night, Bruce.”

The light recedes again, and then there’s only the ephemeral flash of the monitors. The whir fills the space with the fact that Tim’s alive, spearing the dark like sunbeams through the sea ceiling, and there’s sweet repose in that. Bruce’s thumb grazes over the top of Tim’s hand, shifting so that he’s holding it now.

It was only a few hours earlier that he was staring at the medical surrogacy papers, trying to imagine if Tim would have any final wishes, any sacraments or requests. It made his brain numb just thinking about it. He never asked—never knew. The mere idea of speaking on Tim’s behalf is terrifying.

And yet, Bruce is likely the only person who can.

A nurse’s pager goes off somewhere outside in the hallway, footsteps, and Tim’s face crinkles just the slightest bit in his sleep.

“It’s all right,” Bruce murmurs, gaze softening. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Even when the footsteps have retreated, past when Tim's expression has loosened back into sleep, Bruce keeps thumbing the knuckles of Tim’s hand. He doesn't think he can let go, and really, that's the gravity of his error.

Because Bruce was supposed to be the one to fill a gap in Tim’s life. That had been his intention.

It’s not until he’s sitting here waiting that he realizes it’s been the other way around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oddly specific, but if any batfam writer's interested, here's a copy of the 2011 New Jersey medical surrogacy laws, particularly the list on the second page. (*ゝω・)ﾉ
> 
> https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2010/Bills/A4500/4098_S1.PDF (Health Care Decision-Making for Incapacitated Patients)


	6. The Reflection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post- _A Clean Bill of Health_.

“You gonna ask him?”

Bruce hesitates in knocking on Tim’s door. He’d assumed the Manor was dead at this hour, just prior to sunrise, but naturally, Dick never abides by expectations. “What’re you doing up?” Bruce whisper-asks his eldest.

Dick shrugs in reply, pulling his foot back to stretch his thigh. Both legs are littered with the KT tape he swears by, and the plasticky sheen shimmers in the hallway lights. “Getting some ice,” he finally answers, then glances between Bruce and Tim’s door. “I sure hope you’re not planning on asking him _now._ ”

“No.”

“Well, good.” He switches legs. “That always seemed like an after-the-crack-of-dawn kind of thing.”

Bruce checks his Rolex—quarter to five. He’ll be late for W.E. at this rate, and he hasn’t even bothered to knot his tie yet; the strands dangle pitifully. “I was just doing my rounds before leaving. Had to bribe Damian to stop reading Voltaire long enough to actually fall asleep.”

“Only you would have that problem.”

Bruce snorts. “Didn’t make it any easier.”

Dick tilts his head in agreement. He moves on to stretch his calves against the wall, and Bruce looks back to Tim’s door. It’s so unassuming, a quiet guestroom door—void of any expression—with simple trim in a deep mahogany. Dick’s door has a handle sign, one Wally accidentally stole from a Detroit La Quinta, and even Damian’s has a slew of post-its warning the knocker only to enter if it’s life or death (with the notable exclusion of Alfred, of course). But Tim’s? There’s no intentional statement there. It shouldn’t mean anything, but it feels as though it’s a continuation of that same pattern—the one from all the previous times Tim was here. That Bruce will wake up one day to hear that Tim’s left without even saying good-bye.

“…He’s going to say no.”

Dick perks up from his stretch, scrutinizing Bruce’s face with wide eyes. “So you _are_ gonna do it.”

“Not sure…”

His eldest throws up a hand. “Oh, come on. What’s there to be unsure about?”

“Because I know him,” Bruce asserts. “He likes his independence.”

“Congratulations. You’ve just described being a teenager.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Bruce says quietly, looking to the side. “It’s different with Tim. For whatever reason, he _needs_ his space. I don’t want to drive him away by inserting myself—all of us—into that.”

“Look, Bruce.” Dick props an arm against the wall, crossing his legs at his ankles. “You’re a living testament to the idea that no one _wants_ to be alone—no matter how much they may think otherwise. And Tim’s the same breed of person as you. Smart. Hard-headed. Sure, he’s independent, but that doesn’t mean he needs less love than the rest of us.”

“It’s not the same. Tim’s…” Bruce sighs. “Tim’s alone because he chooses to be.”

“Or maybe he just doesn’t know there’s another option.” Dick flattens his mouth as if begging Bruce to find a counter to that. Bruce can’t, but he still has his reservations: After all, there’s no point in asking a question when he already knows the answer.

“You should go get that ice,” Bruce says instead.

Dick watches him for a few seconds. “Yeah…” He starts to move past, patting Bruce on his shoulder as if in encouragement. “Don’t keep him up too long. We binged _Indie Jones_ something fierce last night.”

Bruce shakes his head (“Goodnight, Dick.”) before turning the knob to Tim’s room.

He can’t help but hold his breath until the hallway light panels onto Tim. He’s still here, passed out with half a blanket tumbling off him. The too-long sleeves of the flannel Alfred dug up are stuffed under a pillow, probably doused with fabric softener to mask the musty smell, and Tim’s snoring slightly.

Bruce smiles at that, closing the door part-way to leave some light.

“Tim,” he whispers, kneeling down beside the bed and putting a hand on the boy’s back. He shakes him gently. “Hey, buddy. I’m heading out.”

Tim rolls onto his side, freeing a hand to flop it over his eyes. The medical bracelet comes with it, and the cool metal seems to help him wake up. “Wha’?”

“Lucius called last night. He needs me.”

Tim mumbles something about Lucius needing a vacation instead, and Bruce pulls Tim’s hand away from his face to see if he’s semi-conscious yet. His eyes are only partly open. “’s Sunday, too,” Tim slurs. “Nee’ work Sunday?”

“Yeah, I have to.”

Tim’s eyes shift away from Bruce’s face and to his neck, his eyebrows wrinkling like he’s focusing through a bad lens’ prescription. “Tie’s nah even on.” Bruce is about to tell him it’s not a big deal, but Tim’s already shaking his arms to jostle his sleeves back out of the way, propping himself on his elbows. His eyes slip closed again as he pops Bruce’s collar up on muscle memory to start evening out the ends of the tie.

“It’s fine, Tim, really.”

Tim mumbles incoherently, probably a sleep-drunk “No, it’s nah,” but it comes out muffled when the teen’s forehead slips onto Bruce’s shoulder. There’s really nothing more Bruce can do but wrap his arms around the kid to keep him from falling over entirely. His skin’s bursting with a dozy warmth, flannel soft beneath Bruce’s fingers, and his heartbeat’s still steady from sleep.

“Need anything from the office?” Bruce asks, leaning his cheek against Tim’s hair.

Tim pulls the knot up all the way and straightens it blind before letting his hands slip off. “Dun think so,” he yawns, shifting his head more comfortably against Bruce’s neck. “Tell Lucius love him.”

“I will.”

Slowly, a limp pressure grows into Bruce’s palms. He’s pretty sure Tim’s just fallen asleep on him, run dry from the medications and check-ups the past few weeks have entailed. If Bruce didn’t have work, he honestly doesn’t know if he could let go, but he manages to slide Tim off himself and lower him back down. He combs the teen’s hair off his face. “Night, bud.”

Tim mumbles something similar as he grabs the comforter and drags it over himself with a roll.

Bruce huffs out a laugh and closes the door behind himself, clomping down the foyer stairs. It’s not until he gets to the bottom that it fully sets in that he’s heading back out into the chaos of W.E. without his right-hand man. W.E. is just that much drier without Tim, hardly anyone around who genuinely sees him as a person—especially at face value.

He’s condemned himself to that, admittedly, but it doesn’t make it any less miserable.

“Well,” Bruce sighs as he crams his feet into his dress shoes, “time to go play monkey.”

It’s only right before he pulls the Manor door back that he catches a look at himself in the adjacent mirror. He looks tired but well-kempt in a three-piece suit; his tie is flawless; and today, he seems different from how he usually thinks of himself: respectable instead, like a man with a family who’s just doing his best to make them proud.

It’s not a bad image.

He spends another moment watching the Bruce Wayne of his reflection—the version of himself that he shows the world, and just before he leaves, he offers himself the weakest of smiles.


End file.
